Famine Page 2

“Has my commanding officer been informed?”

  “You won’t be needing a commanding officer where you’re going.”

  “What did you mean by, supermarket?”

  The guard held out his hands, palms facing up. “Well, this of course. And not only did you make it to the supermarket, but it seems as though you’ve been invited to dinner.” The guard nodded, and the other two men escorted Brian out of the cell. The sound of steel slammed from behind as they headed down the corridor.

  “They’re gonna eat you, boy,” a voice echoed from behind. “Where’s our food you bastards! Don’t we at least get a last meal?”

  “You are the last meal,” a guard shouted.

  Chapter Three

  WITH his ankles and wrists shackled and chained, Brian tried to keep the pace with the line of men behind him. With each step the men took, the chains dragged against the macadam parking lot like a jingle of bells on Christmas Eve. But it wasn’t Christmas Eve, and with the temperature soaring to more than ninety degrees, it damned sure wasn’t winter. All of the men’s faces glistened with sweat. They gave up trying to wipe it away, so it dripped off their foreheads and into their eyes, the salt stinging their corneas. They didn’t care, though. It was the least of their worries. The jingle bells stopped.

  A guard slowly walked past each man and stopped next to Brian at the beginning of the line. Brian towered over him by a good ten inches. The guard scanned each face before starting to talk.

  “Each of you will board the bus, one at a time, and take the farthest seat that’s empty in the back. And if I hear any of you complaining because you didn’t get a window seat I’ll blow your ugly head clean off. Did I make myself clear?”

  A moment of silence.

  “Good. Now let’s get moving.”

  The chain connecting Brian’s ankles stretched tight as he took the first step onto the bus. The second and third steps came much easier after the learning curve—step and hop. He waddled to the back and dropped himself into the last seat, next to the window. I got a window seat.

  Not all the men mastered the stairs as quickly as he did. Some made it past the first step, but fell backwards navigating the second. Some couldn’t make the first without a few choice words and a push in the ass from the guard.

  “Jesus Christ, you’re like a bunch of invalids,” the guard yelled. “Haven’t you ever ridden a goddamned bus before?”

  The sound of the chains dragging down the aisle as the men boarded the bus was somehow soothing to Brian. The guard would curse, steel would smack the steps, and chains would drag down the aisle before the process was repeated again and again.

  Brian’s eyes got heavy as he stared out the window, and before long he could no longer hear the chains and was walking hand-in-hand with his fiancé, Shannon. A chilly May gust hit Shannon’s face and she took a deep breath, enjoying its freshness. Her auburn hair was pushed back, and her cheeks took on a healthy red glow. Brian never thought she looked more beautiful than at that moment.

  “What?” Shannon said with a smile, noticing his stare.

  Brian was mesmerized.

  “What’s wrong?” Shannon asked.

  “You’re just so pretty. I can’t believe you agreed to marry me.”

  “Hey, wait just a minute, fella. I never agreed to that.”

  They both smiled.

  She pecked his cheek as they continued walking. From the corner of her eye, Shannon noticed three boys following them about a half block away.

  Brian glanced back, curious as to what captured her attention. He thought nothing of it at first, but when they turned onto their street the boys kept coming.

  “Are they following us?”

  Shannon looked back. “They’re just kids. The oldest can’t be more than seventeen.” She slowed her pace as they neared their apartment.

  “We should keep walking,” Brian said. “I don’t want them to know where we live.”

  “Honey, they’re just kids. And besides, I’m cold. I just wanna go home, get out of these clothes, and take a hot bath.” She bumped his side. “You can join me if you want.”

  “I don’t know. I just... something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Please,” Shannon said, wearing her best pouty face. “I’ll make it worth your wild.”

  They stopped in front of their apartment, and as Shannon headed for the door, Brian grabbed her hand. “Let’s just wait here for a few minutes.” He turned and faced the boys, his eyes focused on each of their faces as they drew nearer.

  “Brian, let’s go in,” Shannon said, her heart beginning to race.

  “Not yet. Just wait. We’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

  Shannon wanted to believe him, and she knew she was safe with him by her side, but her heart still pumped faster as the boys got closer. Within seconds, it seemed they were ten feet away. Soon it was five feet. Her eyes were glued to their faces, and theirs to hers. They smiled and passed. She took a deep breath. When they were out of hearing distance, she turned to Brian. “I told you they were young.”

  Brian didn’t respond, his gaze still fixated on the boys. “You’re too trusting, Shannon. You can’t be cautious enough nowadays.”

  “You’re too paranoid,” she replied. “Did you see the youngest one? He was cute.”

  Three hours later, after a hot bath and a warm meal in his stomach, Brian sat on the sofa, contemplating going to work. I should take some time off. “I think I’ll skip tonight,” he yelled.

  Shannon came out of the bathroom drying her hair with a towel. “Honey, I’ll be fine. I told you, they were just cute kids.” She sat next to Brian. “There’s people out there that need you. That’s what you do. You protect people.” She grabbed his hand. “You worry about me too much.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

  “I think I’m old enough to take care of myself. Now come on, you’d better get going before you get court-marshaled, or whatever it is they do to deserters.”

  Ten hours later, Brian came home. The apartment door was ajar, and the lights were on. Shannon never leaves the lights on during the day. His heart slammed at his chest and his breathing quickened. His hand slowly pushed the door, afraid of what he’d find.

  The chains came back and his eyes opened, his forehead covered with sweat. The last man was taking a seat in the front of the bus, and the guard was headed up the stairs.

  “Okay, let’s get moving,” the guard said to the driver. “We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

  The bus hummed to a start, its electric motor as silent as its cargo when it lunged forward. Occasionally, a chain could be heard when a foot needed to be repositioned or a head scratched, but other than that it was just quiet. The silence was good, though. It gave Brian an opportunity to think. Something he hadn’t done that much lately. He considered why people do the things they do. Are we all evil inside, and it’s just waiting for the opportunity to come out? Why the hell would three seemingly normal boys rape and murder his fiancé? Why would a woman pretend to be raped so an innocent man would have his life ripped away and then put on a bus to go God knows where? And the hardest question of all to answer: Why on earth would anyone want to hurt a small child?

  Brian shook his head as large walls of brick buildings passed by like being in a tunnel heading to another dimension. People weren’t always like this. He remembered learning that a man named Sigmund Freud once theorized that the human mind was made up of three parts: the id, ego, and super-ego. The id was the part that controlled everyone’s basic desires. He wondered if the lack of food could somehow make each of our ids stronger; make our desires more tempting, to the point where we’d do anything to anyone to get what we want. It was all making sense. That has to be it. Why else would normal people do abnormal things? Because we’re starving! And once our desire for food takes over, driving us to the point of insanity, our desire for sex soon follows. That’s why once-normal boys resort to murder and rape. He wondered if it would ever be possib
le for a person to get back to what they were once they changed. Or did the evil stay inside of them, controlling their every thought, burying their old selves forever?

  The city blocks turned into a highway. The chains were silent. The guard was quiet. Everyone ceased to exist. If a tree falls in the forest and it doesn’t make a sound, does it exist? If a bus filled with men who are no longer wanted doesn’t make a sound, does the bus exist? Do the men exist? Brian pondered these questions and many others as he stared out the window.

  The bus turned a corner and the ocean appeared—the road holding back its sandy beach. The water was calm, and the beach tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal hidden oddities society no longer wanted: an arm without a body, the stiff fingers of the hand standing erect on the sand like a crab; a human head, the face half buried and the hair pressed flat to the sand like the petals of a sun-scorched flower; and then an object appeared that forced Brian to press his face closer to the glass. His first thought was a candy cane when he saw the red and white shirt. As the bus drew closer, the shape of a body appeared—a boy’s body. It’s Alan! Brian looked around the bus. Nearly everyone was sleeping. The guard! I have to tell the guard to stop the bus! He turned back to the window to be sure what he was seeing was real before disturbing the guard.

  The boy’s head moved. The arm moved. He’s still alive! The body pulled its knees forward. Its arms pushed the sand, elevating the torso. The head raised and the eyes stared directly at Brian. As the small face turned, following the bus, an icy chill raced through Brian’s body. One side of the face looked perfectly normal, but the other was gone. An eyeless skull appeared. Brian’s breathing quickened. His hand trembled against the glass. He turned back to the other men. Is anyone else seeing this? Nothing but lowered heads and closed eyes.

  When Brian turned back to the window, a face was pushed against the glass. He tried to yell, but a forced moan was all that came out.

  A hand smacked his shoulder. “Wake up! This ain’t no goddamned Greyhound tour.”

  Brian opened his eyes and stared up at the guard standing in the aisle. A few of the other men briefly turned to Brian before returning to their own horrific nightmares. Some smiled with a shake of the head. The bus rolled forward. He turned back to the window. The ocean was still there, calm as a solid piece of glass, and the sand did try to conceal macabre treasures, as did the alleys and the woods. Bodies were everywhere, as if people had just suddenly died of starvation where they were standing, or sitting, or lying. Some of the fresher corpses had obvious bite marks where the meat had been picked over. And no race was immune. Death didn’t discriminate. Nor did it select by age. The young and old alike took their place among the dead. But there was no sign of the small boy who put his trust into a strange man who had promised to protect him. What Brian did see, though, as the bus slowed to a stop, made him and all the other men turn to the ocean.

  EVERY man fixed their gaze on the white yacht—a large red “A” encompassed in a triangle painted on its side.

  “Okay, ladies,” the guard said. “Looks like this tour is over for you.” He smiled, knowing where the men were heading, and added, “Literally. Now everyone on your feet.” The jingle bells chimed as the men stood. “We’re gonna evacuate the bus, single file, from the front to the rear. In other words, the last man that boarded will be the first man off, and vise-versa.” The guard descended the steps and waited for the men to start exiting the bus.

  The first appeared at the top step. Climbing off the bus seemed easier than getting on as he hopped off the last step onto the ground. The guard pulled him away from the bus to form the head of a line. As the others dispensed from the door like snacks from a vending machine, the guard grabbed their arm and positioned them behind the previous man. Within a short period of time, the line was complete.

  Four armed officers appeared from the boat, each dressed in a red uniform with the same insignia on their upper arm that was on the side of the boat. The guard handed the first of them an electronic tablet, which the officer immediately pressed his thumb to. After a beep, the guard retrieved the tablet. “They’re all yours now,” he said, eyeing the men standing in line. He headed back to the bus. “Adiós, amigos.”

  As the men before him ascended a ramp to the boat, Brian stared at the shimmering city in the distance, protruding from the ocean. He’d heard rumors of a great city made of glass somewhere in the ocean, but he never knew if it actually existed. One of the uniformed officers pushed him toward the ramp. Gulls screamed from above.

  After boarding the boat, Brian and the other men were led to a large room, which made up the entirety of the vessel. He was surprised to see that the room was already more than half-filled with other shackled men. Men who, unlike himself, looked more like hardened criminals. There was something that made them seem more like captured animals, a sense of both fear and rage evident in their eyes. And Brian also noticed they all had something in common, including himself: they were all big guys. Not a man in the room, aside from the ones dressed in red carrying weapons, weighed less than two hundred pounds; some closer to three hundred. He wondered what their stories were. Did they once have a wife and children? Did they play catch with their sons, or teach them how to fish? And if so, did they suffer enough to cross over into a world that was too late to escape?

  After he and the others were escorted to their seats, the boat pulled away from the dock. The room’s thick, moist air carried the stench of testosterone and sweat. Brian cupped his hand to his mouth to mask the odor. He considered how fast life could change. A few months ago, he was walking down the sidewalk with the woman he was certain he would be spending the rest of his life with and now he was on a boat and had no idea what lie in store for him. As he glanced out one of the windows and saw what could only be described as a crystal city rising up from the ocean, he was sure of one thing, though: if he couldn’t have the life he thought he would have with Shannon, then his other purpose in life was most likely about to begin.

  Chapter Four

  BRIAN Harris and the other men from the boat were brought to a large room in the center of the kennel. The kennel staff knew the room as The Holding Pen, and they always stopped what they were doing and watched as the men walked by, their heads tilting toward each other as they commented on an exceptionally large male or one that was marked with a lot of tattoos.

  The room was filled with rows of chairs, and each of the men took a seat and twisted their necks in every direction, looking for any sign of what was to come next. What they saw, instead of a clue to their destiny, were more armed men dressed in red uniforms, spread out sporadically around the room.

  “What the hell is this place?” one of the mainlanders asked of the man seated beside him.

  Instead of responding, the other man just shook his head, his mouth opened in awe of his surroundings. The longer the men remained seated without an explanation as to why they were there, the more they began to speak to each other.

  “What are they gonna do to us?”

  “Is this another prison?”

  “What does the “A” stand for on the guards’ uniforms? Is this some kind of new government?”

  “When are they gonna feed us? I haven’t eaten in days.”

  What started out as a low murmur of questions, eventually led to a loud roar of conversations. The guards readied their weapons as the volume of the men increased to a level that could be heard by anyone walking in the hallway, just outside of the room. When a red door opened and a man entered and stepped up to a podium, the room fell silent almost immediately.

  Most of the men seated in the room recognized the man standing behind the podium. The only ones that didn’t were the ones that just happened to be lying unconscious on the floor of the prison cell when the man pointed to them. Brian had been one of those men and so didn’t recognize the man. By the time he had awoken, the man had already pointed him out to the prison guard and his name was jotted down on a clipboard. The man cleared his thr
oat, his head turning from left to right as he eyed what he considered the groceries he bought from the supermarket.

  “I just want to start by thanking each and every one of you for the service you are about to perform for the good of mankind.”

  Whispers raced through the room like a breeze preceding an oncoming storm.

  “What service?”

  “What’s he talking about?”

  “I ain’t performing no service for these sons-a-bitches.”

  Brian sat silent, his gaze glued to the man behind the podium. When the whispers stopped, the man continued.

  “Before I go on, allow me to introduce myself. My name is William Weston, and the responsibility of feeding the people of this magnificent city of Ancada falls directly upon my shoulders. I’m sure each of you had the privilege of witnessing this modern marvel as you approached the island, and if not for men such as yourselves, it wouldn’t be possible for us to exist.”

  “What’s this place got to do with us?” a voice yelled.

  Brian absorbed each word as it left Weston’s mouth. As the others continued to question their role in securing the existence of this island paradise, he began to unscramble the pieces of the puzzle. He remembered what the guard had said back at the prison: Welcome to the supermarket. And the comment one of his cellmates said as he was being led down the corridor: They’re gonna eat you, boy. He looked around the room and eyeballed each man whose legs and arms were shackled like animals. There was a reason they were all big like himself. Who would want to slaughter a cow with no meat on its bones?

  As the man behind the podium continued trying to convince the mainlanders that their lives held a higher meaning, Brian tried desperately to figure out a way to avoid being invited to the dinner table as the main course. He could easily take out a few of the armed men standing around the room, but it would be nearly impossible with his arms and legs in shackles. Perhaps he could grab the weapon from the man standing just a few feet behind him. Even though his wrists were shackled, he could easily manipulate the weapon. But what then? Would he just start shooting everyone in the room? Would he have enough ammo? Did these guns even take ammo? He’d handled a vast array of weapons while on duty with the National Guard, but these weapons looked like something out of a science fiction movie. And if he was able to figure out how to fire the weapon, could he possibly stand up and somehow jump over his seat before being shot in the head?